Tuesday, January 19, 2010

God and Guns

On The Brain Police site, Microdot has written a post about the God and Guns mix that some of us find fascinating. It seems a major defense contractor which provides gun sights for the military has placed biblical citations on them, I suppose to remind the shooters what the wars are all about.

One of the citations on the gun sights, 2COR4:6, is an apparent reference to Second Corinthians 4:6 of the New Testament, which reads: "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."

Other references include citations from the books of Revelation, Matthew and John dealing with Jesus as "the light of the world." John 8:12, referred to on the gun sights as JN8:12, reads, "Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."

"It's wrong, it violates the Constitution, it violates a number of federal laws," said Michael "Mikey" Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, an advocacy group that seeks to preserve the separation of church and state in the military.

What's your opinion? Is something wrong with this? Does it violate the separation of church and state? Does it offend non-Christian soldiers and Marines?

25 comments:

This is ABC news trying to stir the pot a little. You see, the seperation of church and state doesn't apply, because Trijicon is a private company.As for the non-christians, I doubt many even knew. Being a non-christian myself, I had to google "JN8:12" to even figure it out.It's an issue that never would have come up if left alone, I believe. And seeing how good the ACOG is, I'm sure most Trijicon owners won't care.

Nevermind that U.S. military rules specifically prohibit the proselytizing of any religion in Iraq or Afghanistan and were drawn up in order to prevent criticism that the U.S. was embarked on a religious "Crusade" in its war against al Qaeda and Iraqi insurgents.

These sights violate that rule.

OK, How long before the Supreme Court decided to rule that the US is a Christian Country based upon popular opinion. Using the rationale in DC v Heller, there is enough proof that the founders intended the US to be a Christian nation.

The New First Amendment will then read:

"Congress shall make laws respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"

Of course, everyone will say that everyone KNOWS the founders really intended to establish religion since the States had established religions at the time of the Constitution.

You shouldn't be too bothered if you think Heller was correctly decided.

The fun bit, there was a strong anti-Catholic sentiment in the US. There still is supposedly.

If you ask me, it's wrong, but if you'd have to get around this problem, and also this problem, if you want that argument to prevail in court. The Courts generally give the other two branches wide deference when it comes to exercising their military powers.

FWM said, "How strange that a company that produces light gathering optics would use passages about light."

Good point. I actually enjoyed the references to light, which is the marksman's best friend. The problem is this is a military government contract. I see this as evidence of the religious right making inroads that they have no business making.

Trijicon now has over a half billion dollars worth of contracts with the US Military.Of course this is a can of worms that even opening will create a new firestorm of indignation from the religious right.Logic does not come into play in the arguments. It again is transformed into a provacative illegal action which when a complaint is made, the complaint is interpreted as religious persecution by the religious right.

The US Military in their initial ruling on these matters is absolutely correct. Giving any impression that our actions against Muslim fundamentalism is something that can be readily translated into propaganda about a Western anti Muslim Crusade.This was a position taken out of common sense, but now it becomes a rallying cry for christians that they are somehow being persecuted by not being allowed to put biblical citations on gunsites.The argument exposes the insanity and the emotional illogic that will destroy feedomn as we have known it in America.

I wonder if this molehill is enjoying its "mountain" status. I don't care if the sights have "2COR4:6," "JN8:12," (has any proof been presented that these markings are indeed intended as religious references, by the way?), or "Allahu Akbar" marked on them, and I kinda doubt the troops using them--or the terrorists being targeted with them--care much more than I do.

The government buying sights marked with letters and numbers that supposedly bear some religious significance seems rather a long way from Congress making a law "respecting an establishment of religion."

I'm not religious, and even I can't summon a reason to care about currency being marked with "In God We Trust"--and the case against that would seem a good deal stronger than the case against the military's Trijicon contract.

I doubt it violates the intent of the constitutional declaration of freedom of religion (there is no enumerated constitutional declaration of a separation of church and state, just freedom of religion) but I'm not sure what Trijicon thinks they're accomplishing if this is true. It does seem unprofessional, of course.

The Bible has nothing against arms ownership or self defense. It discourages neither, though does command people to try and keep the peace and not escalate minor violent situations.

there is no enumerated constitutional declaration of a separation of church and state, just freedom of religion

First Amendment says:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion ...

More precisely this. Social conservatives like to say that because it doesn't come out and say separation of church and state that means there is to be none. They also like to say that clearly this was only meant to prevent the federal (or states, if you recognize the 14th amendment) from establishing a state church. That's hard to reconcile with the fact that the "wall of separation" is a term coined by none other than Thomas Jefferson.

Pretty clearly the First Amendment does not demand the removal of all religion from public life, but the establishment clause means that the government must be neutral on matters of religion. It does not run afoul of the First Amendment that Trijicon inscribes biblical literature on their sights. They are free to do that as a matter of free exercise. The question is can the military, which buys them, issue them to soldiers, many of whom may not believe. Does this represent the military preferring one religion over the other?

There plenty of room to argue that the practice does not run afoul of the establishment clause, but it's not as simple as saying the clause doesn't exist. It does, and as long as it does, courts have to decide on its meaning. If a solider wants to take this to court, he can. There's arguments to be made on both sides. That's how the system works.

The way you (and Jefferson?) are reading the 1st amendment on religion is certainly the way SCOTUS reads it, so other opinions are moot. I haven't studied it to a great degree and I don't have a personal problem with the current SCOTUS interpretation in any case ... just am not SURE it was what the writer's meant even if you and the SCOTUS are.

But I agree with you on the subject of forcing soldiers to carry anything with a reference to a religious work. I wouldn't want to be forced to carry a weapon (or tool of any kind) with references to the Koran on it, and if I lived in a predominately Muslim state I would expect that the government -- out of common respect and decency if not a constitutional clause -- would not force me to. Of course ... chances are a muslim government would ... but that's a different discussion.

Damn -- I wish I had finished completing that application to law school!

I have no problem with "In God We Trust" on the money and many of the other things that are often argued about. But biblical citations on military gun sights is going too far. I don't agree with Sebastian that it's small potatoes. Complaining about the money, is silly. Complaining about this is important because not to do so furthers the false belief that we're involved in a religious war with the Muslims, Good Christianity against Evil Islam.

I do have a problem with the "In God we trust" and "One nation under God" stuff. The RR wants to say that those things are purely "ceremonial" but try removing them and listen to them go batshit about it.

The inscription of any sort of non-functional code on a piece of military hardware (or, for that matter, civilian equipment) if nothing else adds to the confusion of identifying the item.

Mikeb: "Complaining about this is important because not to do so furthers the false belief that we're involved in a religious war with the Muslims"

That's the part that sways me. We are engaed in struggles that are dependent upon some Muslims being our allies, and this endangers that goal as well as hands a propaganda and recruiting tool to our enemies.

You own a number of guns, correct? You knos that finding parts for one of them might involve telling the manufacturer what its serial number is. If you don't know what it is you might not be able to do thatOd . Of course the U.S. military has trained its troops to know where to look for that information. In fact they knew about the "serial number with JESUSY talking points references" as soon as they received the first shipment of sights from the manufacturer. So they put out a directive to address that fact and... Oh, they didn't? Gosh!

I know that you, with your obsessive zeal about all things related to shooting guns (except a reasonable attitude about what happens when your "rights" might bump up against other folks' "rights") but knowing about how guns work doesn't = knowing everything else. It's a big world, mikey, lots to learn, even for certified jeanyooses like yourself.

I thought, Mikeb, that I had already made clear that I think this is much ado about nothing. How can someone be "proselytized" by such vague "religious references" as three or four numbers and a like number of letters? How likely is it that Muslims who would find something like that offensive (if they knew what it meant, anyway) would even get close enough to the sight to read it?

Actually, boys, it appears that General Petraeus acted on his own and told the contractor that they needed to fix the problem. As I said when I posted this on the other thread from later this week--he must not have gotten your e-mails.